


The Price at the Black Antler

by Vera (Vera_DragonMuse)



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-08 21:40:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10396737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vera_DragonMuse/pseuds/Vera
Summary: A folktale and a warning.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Fatal Drum for the Fandom Trumps Hate Auction. I hope that this satisfies!

Years ago, there was a farm at end of the longest dirt road in the county that everyone knew about, but rarely mentioned. It was only a dozen acres or so hemmed in on all sides by dense pine trees. All year round the trees cast spiked shadows over the house and barn. Both structures were old, but sound and freshly painted. 

The long pitted driveway always held a dusty pick up truck and an impeccably kept sedan. But almost any time one drove by, there’d be a guest too. All sorts went there, parking next to the hanging sign that had no name, only a single black antler carved in so deep to the wood it nearly came through the other side. If the sun slanted in just right, it shone through the thin barrier making it glow. 

Everyone visited there. Not for honey like at the Jamensons, not for eggs like the Dubois. Certainly not for meat or milk like at the Goldbergs. 

The owners did not sell such things, even if people would’ve trusted them enough to buy it. The owners bought those things with a generous wallet. Well, one of them did. The fair one, who moved like a cat, would sidle up to booths and make quick assessments. He always picked the best things, the brightest colored fruits, the most marbled cuts of meat. Sometimes he even stayed to talk and everyone remarked on how polite and thoughtful he was, but his name always slid away from them after. 

The faded one did not go shopping. He was often seen fishing and it pleased the other fisherman that he was short on words. Most of what he caught, he let go, only taking home enough for two to eat fresh. All year long, he’d stand in the cold rapids with a hat pushed down low and his rod as steady as his filleting knife. 

But it wasn’t for fish that people went to the Black Antler. 

It was the crop they grew. No one saw them tend the field under the harsh light of day. Instead they moved among the rows under the moon’s watchful eye. 

The faded one would go out in the spring when they cold had just started to shake loose from the dirt. Moving around him in an easy mill were the dogs, a half dozen at least and none a breed you could put your finger on. He’d carry a spade and dig at irregular intervals, groping along the ground. When the hole was dug, he worked over it. No seed was planted, but words were said and tears were shed. Who knows what goes into such work? 

He’d go out as the plants grew, each one different. Some were vines, growing up trellises he built with salvaged wood, others were flowers with pungent scents, still others bore vegetables that grew so plump they constantly threatened to split their green skins until they mellowed into a rainbow of colors and cacophony of shapes. There were melons with spiked rinds, or squash that grew bulbous and green. 

In the fall, the fair one went out with a scythe and harvested them all. His blade shone with starlight and the fluids of the bursting ripe vegetables spattered over his immaculate clothes. 

All through the late fall and winter, the two of them would mix, cook, and preserve. They filled their basement with jellies, jams, and stock. The rafters of their kitchen smelled of herbs as bundles hung down to dry. 

And everyone came for those. There was no stall at the market, no sulky teenager selling on the road, or deal with a supermarket chain. There was only their door with the bell that you rang when you had run out of other solutions. 

“Come in,” the fair one would greet you with an expression that could be a smile or a frown. It never reached his eyes. “Have a seat.” 

There were soft, worn sofas and one pristine velvet armchair that no one ever sat in, but him. He would ask you questions. Questions no one else ever dared to ask. You’d tell him everything too because that’s what you were here for. To be asked. To be heard. To be given what you needed. 

When he had wrung everything from you there is to get, he’d stand and call out a name that ran from the mind as it was spoken. The faded one would appear and doorway. They would speak in looks and a few whispers. The faded one would gesture for you to follow. 

You’d walk into the kitchen with all the sweet-sour-salty-tangy smells. Your stomach would roil as he moved quietly about the space. 

That’s when you’d notice the dogs. None of them ventured into the fair one’s parlor or the sacrosanct kitchen. But they sprawled across the back porch, visible through the screen. Most of them would be asleep, one or two idly chewing at their bowls. All of them were turned towards the faded one, compasses to their north even in sleep. 

“You need this,” the faded one would begin and then lapse back into silence. He would take out a bowl and move around plucking leaves from the ceiling. He’d use a pestle to ground it down fine. If your problem was small, he would pour the powder into a small envelope, seal it with a lick and send you on your way. 

But most people didn’t bother with the Black Antler for small things. 

“Wait here,” he’d say if herbs alone wouldn’t do. He’d head into the basement and after a moment, the fair one would appear in the doorway and follow him down. You could hear snatches of conversation: 

“Not there. You moved it last year...” “....next to the olives, why do we have so many olives...” “...because you ate it, remember?” 

Such friendly familiar kindness of any couple together so long they’ve grown the trunks of their trees together, branches knitted one to the other. Sometimes they would even laugh, two warm sounds overlapping and mixing in the air. 

It could trick you, that shared laughter. You could think for a breath that they were normal. That you were there to buy eggs. 

You weren’t there to buy eggs. 

They’d come back up the stairs each carrying a jar or two or three. The fair one would place them on the counter and watch as the faded one picked through them. He poured without a measuring cup, stirring with a rigid white whisk that yellowed like bone as he glided it through jellies and syrup. 

“Do you want it as a meal?” He’d ask. 

A lot of people got scared, said no. He’d decant the concoction into a jar and their stomachs would turn when they got home at the thought of consuming it raw. Some tried to cook it themselves, but it wasn’t a malleable substance. It would curdle milk and breads wouldn’t rise. And they’d be too ashamed to go back again. 

The smart ones, the ones who could take measure of the worth of the product, would nod or squeak out a ‘yes’. You had to know the value of what you were getting. 

The fair one would take over. The faded one would go out on the porch with the dogs. If he liked you, which he often didn’t, he’d offer you whiskey out of a jam jar. Something to sip as the fair one worked. 

The things that came out of the Black Antler kitchen had no match in the county. They were rich meals, filled with tender meats and flowering side dishes. Even the comfortably familiar dishes like casseroles came out more savory, more mouth watering than recipes handed down through generations. 

They were dishes that no one could turn down. Which was the point. 

Because maybe what you ordered wasn’t just for you. 

No one talked about going to the farm because no one wanted to be asked. If you served a particularly good meal, you gave the credit to a fresh ingredient. A recommendation from a new source maybe. And no one, ever, would ask further. 

The meals, the jars, the envelopes, they held things that you couldn’t get anywhere else. The taste was distinctive. Everyone knew where it was from, but if you were served it, you ate it or risked admitting that you knew what it was. 

The faded one grew emotions and the fair one killed them. From their kitchen came things as simple as sorrow and joy or as complex as the feeling just after seeing someone that you used to love after many years or the churn of realizing your small child was all grown up. People brought home these tinctures to work on rivals and friends alike. Some just to make a party more special or an anniversary more memorable, but mostly darker things. To sever the bond between two people or invoke jealousy or lust. To drive away a beast at your table. 

And once a year, if you were very lucky, you could get a thimble full of the richest harvest. 

The only thing the owners of Black Antler farm planted and cooked together. 

They’d go out on a night with no moon. The dogs stayed in the house. They didn’t use anything, but their bare fingers to scrabble in the dirt. The good thick soil lodged into their nails and the folds of their skin and under the matching gold bands they wore. 

Into that messy indentation on the ground, they moved in inscrutable ways. But always, if you were daring enough to watch from the road by the dim light of the stars, you’d see them kiss in the long shadows of the pine until their shadows merged one into the other. 

One plant grew from that one hole and it bore a single flower in a red so dark it was nearly black. The flower was theirs and no other would see so much as a petal, but the leaves, thick succulent things they would juice. 

If you were very lucky and you brought a picture of your lover then maybe, just maybe, they would mix a drop of the leaf’s gel into a spoon of honey for both of you to eat. Love stories that started that way, ended only in death. Though they would make no promises as to what kind of death or when. 

That was what was whispered in the halls of schools and between the planks of fences. Not enough to get the fair one’s wrath (the ones that talked too much disappeared, no one knew how he knew, but he always did). Just enough to get the next customer there. 

Enough to warn as much as to entice. Enough to make clear the price. 

They didn’t take money at the Black Antler. You could take out your wallet as they handed you a pan or a jar or an envelope and the faded one would shake his head and take a step back. 

“That’s not how it works.” 

And he’d look at you. Really look at you. And you’d lose...something. Something important. Something so important that you can’t put a name to it. When you leave, you will be a little less yourself. A little less than fully there. People who went to the Black Antler came back dreamier, more likely to stare out into space as if they had dropped away from the world entirely for a breath or two. 

You don’t get to negotiate the price. 

The fair one would see you out. 

He’d ask you a last question. He’d wait for you to say thank you. 

And once in awhile, very rarely, weeks or months later....you’d disappear from thin air. 

You don’t cross the Fair Folk. You don’t speak their real names. You say please and thank you. You don’t look back as you leave. And if they take you, you don’t come back. 

But you don’t have to worry. That was a long time ago and there’s no sign with a thin black antler anymore. The house went dark and the fields went fallow. 

As to the owners? Well. Maybe if you went out into the world, drove down highways to the empty places, maybe you’d find them again. Look for a fair man with death in his eyes and a faded man who rarely looks up.

And look in their garden for a flower so red it’s nearly black, standing watch over the other plants. 

Be prepared to pay the price.


End file.
